I have visited Central Park, also a property of the deceased; this property alone is worth more than twenty million dollars....  I have great confidence in my success, and I am almost sure to reach the goal, if you are the heirs, for here there is a mix-up by all the devils....

The wound of my leg has much improved, the consequences which I feared have disappeared, and I expect soon my complete convalescence, but the devil has bestowed upon me a toothache, which makes me almost crazy with pain.  I shall leave, nevertheless, to begin my campaign.

    Will you be kind enough to give my regards to your wife and son, and
    to our old friend, etc., etc.

    PEDRO S. DE MORENO.

“May the devil bestow upon him five hundred million toothaches!” exclaims Lapierre, for the first time showing any sign of animation.

The other letters were read in their order, interspersed with Madame Reddon’s explanations of their effect upon the heirs in France.  His description of the elevators of steel and of the house that covered an entire block had caused a veritable sensation.  Alas! those wonders are still wonders to them, and they still, I fancy, more than half believe in them.  The letters are lying before me now, astonishing emanations, totally ridiculous to a prosaic American, but calculated to convince and stimulate the imagination of a petit bourgeois.

The General in glowing terms paints his efforts to run down the Lespinasse conspirators.  Although suffering horribly from his fractured tibia (when he fell into the “hole"), and from other dire ills, he has “not taken the slightest rest.”  He has been everywhere—­“New Orleans, Florida, to the city of Coney Island”—­to corner the villains, who “flee in all directions.”  The daughter, Marie Louise, through whom the General expects to secure a compromise, has left for New Orleans.  “Wonderful coincidence,” he writes, “they were all living quietly and I believe had no intention whatever to travel, and two days after my arrival in New York they all disappeared.  The most suspicious of it all is that the banker, his wife and children had left for Coney Island for the summer and to spend their holidays, and certainly they disappeared without saying good-by to their intimate friends....  I have the whole history of Tessier’s life and how he made his fortune.  There is a family for the use of whom we must give at least a million, for the fortune of Tessier was not his alone.  He had a companion who shared his troubles and his work.  According to the will they were to inherit one from the other; the companion died, and Tessier inherited everything.  I do not see the necessity of your trip to New York; that might make noise and perhaps delay my negotiations.”  Then follows the list of properties embraced in the inheritance: 

PROPERTY AND PERSONAL ESTATE OF THE HEIRS